by Jan Drexler
Naomi didn’t answer but took her seat. Her face was pink in the firelight and her eyes glowed as she smiled at Andrew. He grinned back at her and looped his arm around her shoulder.
Josef joined them then, sitting next to Jacob. “It’s been a long day, ja?”
“How are the horses holding up?” Jacob asked. Johanna had seen Josef inspecting each of the horses’ hooves, filing them and fixing loose nails.
“These horses are so strong they could pull the wagons all the way to Iowa,” Josef said.
He grinned around the circle, his glance pausing as he looked at Hannah. Johanna felt that twinge again, watching them. She wasn’t jealous, not really. But watching Hannah and Josef exchange glances and smiles when they thought no one else noticed reminded her of her own longing for someone special. Someone who could make her blush with his smile. Someone who had the right to kiss her whenever he liked.
Andrew moved his arm from around Naomi’s shoulders, then leaned close to her, whispering something in her ear that made her laugh. As she enjoyed Andrew’s attention, Naomi looked happier than she had since they left Brothers Valley. Then Andrew looked across the fire and winked at Johanna, and a hot bubble simmered in her breast. He wasn’t serious about Naomi, or Mattie. Was he even serious about her? All the things they had talked about as they ate their noon meals together, or when he met her behind her wagon after all the others had gone to bed . . . had those moments meant anything to him?
Her face grew hot as she tried to concentrate on the conversation between Jacob and Josef, but their words slid past her. She watched Andrew catch Naomi’s eyes with his own, holding her captive. Naomi’s smile was radiant as she watched Andrew’s expressive face. He shared another joke with her and she laughed a little too loudly.
The simmering bubble rose in her throat. Andrew could flirt with any girl he pleased, but Naomi thought he was serious. She loved the attention from him, but she was in for a big fall when he turned his attention elsewhere. Johanna bit her lip, remembering when she thought Jacob was paying attention to her in the same way, and the hollow hurt when she realized he was only being nice to her for Hannah’s sake. Naomi was too sweet to go through that kind of disappointment, but Andrew kept leading her right along.
“What are we going to sing tonight, Andrew?” Jacob said as he stirred the dying fire.
Andrew didn’t answer, but started “das Loblied” in his deep voice. Johanna joined in the singing with the others, their voices softly chanting the old tune. The words of the familiar hymn washed over her, praises to God above taking her mind away from Andrew and everything else. The music pulsed in the same slow rhythm as the glowing coals.
When they had sung all the verses they knew, Josef stood and stretched.
“Ach, it’s to bed we should be going. Morning very early comes.”
Henry rose from the log where he had been nodding off and held his hand out to Mattie, who took it, and they went toward the Schrock wagon together. Jacob followed them, while Hannah and Josef went toward their tent.
Andrew stood and stirred the fire, spreading the coals.
“Good night, Naomi,” Andrew said as she moved to join him by the dying fire.
Naomi stopped. It was too dark to see her face, but Johanna saw the tilt of her head against the stars as she looked toward the log where Johanna sat.
“Good night.” Naomi pulled her skirts in as she walked past Johanna. Once outside the ring of logs, she ran toward her family’s wagon.
Andrew leaned the stick against the log he had been sitting on and lowered himself down next to Johanna.
“I guess it’s just you and me now, right, Jo?”
She knew he was grinning at her, but she only scooted a few inches away from him and leaned toward the fire. The coals were cooling, changing from orange to black, but still pulsing with heat.
Andrew caressed her elbow, then pulled her back toward him. “What’s wrong?”
The expression on Naomi’s face in the firelight earlier gave her the strength to say what she needed to say. “How could you treat Naomi like that?”
“What?” He sounded surprised.
“You don’t have any intention of pursuing marriage or anything with her, but you lead her on until she thinks there’s a possibility.” The words rushed out, and when they were done, Johanna bit her lip. He would never speak to her again after this.
“I was just being friendly.” Andrew shrugged, his palms up in supplication. “All the girls like a little attention, don’t they? Naomi isn’t any different.”
Johanna turned toward him, even though she couldn’t see his face in the dark. “That’s the problem. Naomi is different. She thinks she’s in love with you.” She was glad the darkness hid the tears in her eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a broken heart, do you, Andrew Bontrager? You think it’s fun to laugh and joke with a girl, and even kiss her, but then just when she thinks you actually have feelings for her, you turn around and do the same thing with the next girl.”
“We’re just having fun.”
“It isn’t fun for Naomi. You treat her like some fish you have on a line, giving her hope that she has a future with you, but then you laugh and let her go again. It’s cruel.”
Andrew leaned with his elbows on his knees, quiet for once. Johanna let the silence between them grow while the simmering bubble inside her cooled after her outburst. When he took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair, she stifled a sob. She was as bad as Naomi, loving the wrong man for all the right reasons. But she wouldn’t let him make a fool of her. He wasn’t going to break her heart. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
She stood and he grabbed for her hand. “Don’t go.”
Shaking her head, she pulled away. “I can’t stay. I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned her back on him and stumbled across the rough meadow grass to her family’s wagon, letting the ebbing anger carry her forward until she reached the wagon tongue in the shadows far from the fire. She sank onto the sturdy wood, her face in her hands, and let the hot tears flow.
Andrew took a couple of steps to follow Johanna, but stopped. She didn’t want him near her. That much was clear.
He turned to the fire, kicking up dirt from the edges of the circle to cover the dark red coals. The fire would go out without the smothering, but kicking at the black soil felt good. When he reached the log he had sat on with Naomi, he kicked it too. It felt even better and he kicked it again.
Fool, fool, fool. He had done it again. Gone too far. Stuck his stupid foot in his stupid mouth.
He slumped down on the log. He wasn’t interested in Naomi, so why did he flirt with her tonight?
Because he loved seeing that look in her eyes. Any girl’s eyes. She adored him, and he liked girls who looked at him that way.
The way that led to such trouble back home. Jo was wrong. He knew what it felt like to have his heart broken. He had been on the receiving end of that game when Bethann had married Abe Glick.
He snatched off his hat and then shoved it down on his head again.
Jo knew he was only playing with Naomi. She saw right through him.
Ja, and Mattie knew too. But Mattie didn’t bother him.
But Jo . . . had he lost her tonight?
He was just being himself, wasn’t he? Everyone liked him. Everyone laughed at his jokes. The jokes he told to keep the memories at bay. The games he played to keep himself from getting serious about another girl.
But Jo . . .
His eyes itched and he swiped at them with one hand, feeling the hot wetness. If Jo saw through him, what did the others think?
Jo had seen the real Andrew tonight and she had walked away. If Naomi or even Mattie had done that, he would have shrugged and laughed it off.
He would have forgotten it and gone on to the next girl. Anything to show he wasn’t hurt.
A sob rose in his throat, and he swallowed it down. There wasn’t anyone else like Jo. When he kissed her, it was rea
l. With other girls, it was part of the game, but with her, it was like she opened a place in his soul and joined herself to him.
He lifted his head and stared in the direction of the Hertzlers’ wagon, even though he could only see black shapes in the darkness. Had she gone inside the tent she shared with her sisters, or was she waiting for him?
Andrew bent his head. He didn’t deserve a girl like Jo. But without her . . . He swallowed another sob, forcing it down. Without her, life would be nothing. He would be nothing. If he let her get away . . .
He jumped to his feet and lurched toward the Hertzler wagon. As he got closer, his steps slowed, and he walked with caution, feeling his way past the big wheels toward the front of the wagon. Even in the shadows, he could see her hunched on the wagon tongue.
He stepped up behind her, laying a hand on her back. She turned toward him and he pulled her into his arms. “We have to talk.”
She nodded and sniffed. “Not here. We’ll wake someone up.”
He took her hand, warm and soft, and led her to the pasture where Jacob had put the sheep, up the hill from their camp. The starlight was bright out here in the open, and when Andrew stopped and Jo lifted her face toward him, he could see tears shining on her eyelashes. His gut wrenched. Those tears caused by his stupidity.
“Never again,” he vowed, whispering. “Never again.”
“Never what?”
“I’ll never do anything to make you cry like this, Jo. Never.”
She sniffed again and lifted the hem of her apron to wipe her face. “How can I believe you? You’re never serious about anything. You play with people’s lives like everyone is a character in a story, and you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
Andrew took a step back. “You’re right.” He dropped to his knees in the thick grass, sitting back on his heels. “I’ve been a stupid fool and you’ve known it all the time. How could you stand to be around me?”
Jo knelt next to him and took his hands in hers. “You’re not just a stupid fool.”
He groaned. “What else? How bad am I?”
She tugged at his hands. “That’s not what I mean. You are smart, and you have a gift for bringing people together.” He looked at her and caught the beginning of a smile. “Sometimes you do some pretty foolish things.”
“Like flirting with Naomi tonight.”
“That may have been the most foolish of all. You need to apologize to her.”
Andrew pulled at the grass in front of his knees.
Jo went on. “And no more games.”
Andrew’s eyes stung. So this was what it felt like when God taught you humility. This little slip of a girl telling him how he needed to act. The stiff rod in his back melted. This little slip of a girl who cared enough about him to give him the hiding he deserved.
“I need to apologize to you too.” His words came in a rush, before he could have second thoughts about them.
When she didn’t say anything, but only gripped his hand tighter, an unfamiliar feeling spread through his chest. So he was doing the right thing for once. It felt better than blindly forcing his way along, casting people’s feelings aside as he went.
“I’m sorry, Jo. I didn’t mean—I mean, I didn’t think. I promise, I’ll never do anything like this to you again.”
“Why? Because it makes you feel bad?”
Andrew let the question sift through his head, pushing away his usual casual remarks. He needed to learn a new way to talk to girls . . . to her.
“Not because it makes me feel bad, but because it hurts you.” He took her face in his hands and rose up on his knees, tilting her face toward him and the starlight above them. “I love you, Jo. You make me complete. You make me a better man.”
She stroked his cheek with her hand and circled his neck, pulling him to her. “I love you too.” Their lips met, and Andrew felt Jo tuck herself into his heart.
Christian Yoder looked toward the blue Conestoga wagon nestled under the branches of the maple tree again, the hammer forgotten in his hand. Every thought the last few days was of Annalise. Was she well? Was she comfortable? Would everything be all right?
Elias, nailing his own end of the board to the upright of the table they were building, finished his work with a final hard blow that made Christian jump.
“You need to quit standing here and go talk to her.” Elias talked around the nails in his mouth as he held the next one ready for his hammer blows.
“I don’t want to disturb her.”
Elias drove the nail home with three blows. “If our sawing and hammering hasn’t disturbed her, I don’t know what will.” He gestured with his hammer. “Go on. I can finish this.”
Christian put his hammer in the toolbox and started toward the wagon. He shouldn’t be nervous when it came to talking to his own wife. Climbing up the spokes of the wagon wheel, he peered into the dim interior. Her form was a dark mound on the pallet bed.
“Annalise.” He kept his voice quiet, hoping she was asleep.
But her reply was immediate. “Christian?”
She struggled into a sitting position, and he climbed into the wagon box to kneel at her side.
“Don’t try to get up. I just came to see how you are feeling.”
As his eyes adjusted to the shadowed light, he could see the soft love in her eyes as she smiled at him. “I’m feeling fine, but more than a little bit at loose ends.”
“Where are the children?”
“Hannah took them out to play so I could rest.”
He pulled a keg closer to Annalise’s pallet and sat near her. He took one hand in his and kissed it. “And yet here you are, wide awake.”
She smiled, intertwining her fingers with his. “I’ve rested so much that I’m tired of resting. There is so much to do, and yet I lie here doing nothing.”
“You are doing something very important. You are keeping yourself and the baby healthy. That’s the most important job you can do right now.”
Annalise sighed. “You remember that Mary said there are two babies. Twins, Christian.” She stroked her swollen belly and smiled at him. “Two wee babes waiting to come into the world. We are truly blessed.”
“I know Mary claims there are twins in there, but she isn’t the Lord. Remember, he’s the one who told Rebecca in the Good Book that she carried twins, not the midwife. I’ll wait until your time comes before I believe it for sure.”
A shadow passed over her face then, and she stared toward the front opening of the wagon.
“What is wrong? Something worries you.”
She glanced at him and squeezed his fingers. “You know me so well.” She smiled as he chuckled. “I think often of Liesbet these days. How she should have lived to give birth to our grandchild.”
“Are you afraid of your own confinement?”
Annalise nodded. “Every time a woman gives birth, there is danger of something going wrong. I try not to be afraid, but I don’t want to lose these babies.”
“And I don’t want to lose you. We need to trust that the Lord will do what is best.”
She looked down at her swollen stomach, her bottom lip between her teeth. Christian lifted her chin.
“Something else bothers you. What is it?”
“I also worry about our other children. If I don’t survive, you must marry again. Don’t let the little ones grow up without a mother.”
“But—”
“Promise me.”
“You won’t—”
She struggled to stand up. “Promise me.”
Christian pushed her gently back down onto the pallet and lifted her feet up onto the bed.
“All right. I won’t let the little ones grow up without a mother.” He sat next to her, cradling her in a hug. “But I refuse to believe that you will die giving birth to this baby,” he whispered in her ear.
“Ach, Christian, just like you refuse to believe there are two babies.”
She laughed as she said it and he laughed with her, leaning
his forehead on hers.
He held her like that for several minutes, neither of them speaking. His Annalise. How would he ever live without her?
“I love you.” He sat back to look at her face, swollen with the pregnancy, but beautiful. “You are the light of my life.”
“And you are mine.”
“Do you need anything?”
“A drink of water, and my knitting.”
He fetched a dipper full of water from the bucket at the side of the wagon, and then got her knitting basket from its hook on one of the wagon bows.
“Anything else?”
She shook her head. “You need to get back to work.”
“Not yet. Since we aren’t going on to Indiana with the others, my work isn’t pressing.”
“I worry that we won’t be able to buy our farm in time to grow any food for the winter. Should we stay here until spring?”
Christian shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. There will be a solution. Perhaps the other families will be able to plant our seeds for us.”
“What about a house to live in? And a well? A barn for the animals? There is so much work to be done.”
He pushed the rising doubts away. She was right, but she shouldn’t be worrying about it.
“All of the work will get done in its own time. We have neighbors. Our friends. We will not starve.”
“We can’t expect our neighbors to do all of our work for us. They have their own farms to buy and build.”
“Maybe I should go on to Indiana and come back for you and the children in the autumn.”
Annalise was silent at this suggestion, but her hands twisted the handle of her knitting basket. He laid his hand on hers, stilling her fidgeting fingers.
“We don’t need to make any decisions right now. I will consider what needs to be done and talk it over with the others. There will be a solution.”
She nodded. “That is a good plan.” She yawned. “Perhaps I’ll try to sleep now.”
Christian hung the knitting basket from a hook that was closer to Annalise so she could reach it when she wanted it, then kissed her forehead.
